Will look up.




Thank You

makes sense, i didn't quite read his post right the first time.

picked up 'a new new thing' by michael lewis...anybody read this before?

Just finished The Girl Who Played with Fire. It was OK. The middle section dragged a bit for me because of the absence of for awhile. I didn't see the twist coming so I was impressed. The writing is so bad yet the constantly moving plot is engaging so I keep reading.

Going to see the movie this week.

i've read the first two and have seen the first movie...didn't realize the 2nd movie was out yet...of course, you are in NY.

When I read these kinds of books I don't really care about the quality of the actual writing, as it's the plot and characters I'm interested in...so it doesn't really bother me.

Lisbeth is one of the most interesting characters I've seen in a while.

Has anyone read "Just Kids" by Patti Smith?

Tom Colicchio from Top Chef just tweeted that it was a great book. I'm definitely interested, sounds good.

http://www.amazon.com/Just-Kids-Patt.../dp/006621131X

sigh i just read that as Lou You See Why?

well i'm about 30 pages in and so far it doesn't mean anything but her name..... like D.A.R.Y.L.

Found Lolita at Goodwill for $1.05 and cracked into about 70 pages of it. The whole book's kind of weird because it's about a pedophile, and there have been a few parts that have made me downright uncomfortable, but damn can this guy write. It's like he never runs out new words to use, and can describe almost anything perfectly using metaphor and obscure words.

I'm no english or word buff, but I think I've read just enough, and have just a large enough vocabulary to appreciate Nabakov's writing. I've certainly never read anything like him. Will definitely be checking out some of his other material.

Check PBS for the Tavis Smiley interview with her about the book.

Couldn't agree more. Amazing that someone that isn't a native English speaker has such mastery of the language.

I found "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies" on the table at home, so I picked it up and started reading it. It is an interesting twist on the original version, which is probably why my brother chose it for his summer reading. Has anyone else read it?

Took a while since it came from the UK, but today I received my copy of Beginners, the unedited version of the Raymond Carver short story collection What We Talk About When We Talk About Love. I think I creamed myself. It will be very interesting to compare the two versions.

No Gordon Lish editing?

I almost wonder how that is possible, since so many editors work so closely with their authors at multiple stages of their works, and Lish doesn't have the reputation of being terribly passive.

The stories that make up this collection consist of three groups. Many of these stories were already published in little magazines or by small press publishers. A second group of stories had already been or were soon to be published in periodicals. The preface notes that Carver made some incidental revisions to those previous publications before sending them to Lish for editorial review. A third group, the smallest, involved a quite fresh set of stories.

The preface is unclear about how heavy a hand Lish had in those few tales making up the third group. So while I'm sure Lish would have had a hand in the development of the first two groups of stories if he had had the chance, they were previously published but not well known before he could have his say-so.

There is only one copy of the typed manuscripts that Carver sent to Lish and Lish then edited. The people working with Tess Gallagher, the wife and poet he left behind, spent years lifting the original manuscripts hidden underneath Lish's plethora of marks and notes.

Lish indeed had a heavy hand in the eventual product we are more familiar with. I knew going in that Lish was reported to have cut around 50% of the original manuscripts, but it is still quite shocking to see that in some cases entire sections of stories were removed. This is really quite fascinating.

That sounds like a really great read. I'll be interested in your TR when you're done/or as you're reading it.

I'm just about through a second go-around of Lolita, and if you ever get a chance, you might enjoy leafing through the annotated version of it; his wordplay is probably even more involved/impressive than it seems.

Also, finished Underworld, by Don DeLillo a little while ago. Reminded a bit of Infinite Jest, especially the first bits, which is sort of interesting I guess since they both came out at roughly the same time and afaik Wallace was a fan/friend; kind of colours IJ and its supposed "alieness" a bit for me. But regardless, Underworld is pretty great; the brief little bits about the Texas Highway Killer are pretty affecting imo. DeLillo's prose is also much better than I expected; I don't really hear much about him outside of tangential mention.

Just went a bit crazy on Amazon.

first two books of Peter Watts' Rifters trilogy (Starfish and Maelstrom)
Dawkins' the God Delusion (I never did get around to reading this before)
Larsson's the girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest

Dammit, I just bought this today too. If you finish it before me, promise promise promise you'll put your review in spoilers?

When have I ever reviewed a book? And I'm not reading that one just yet anyway.

This is the Books thread...

where people review...

books...

right?

I just post what I'm reading and whether or not i liked it.

Finally finished Devil in the White City. Too much playing in the sun is cutting down on my reading time this summer. I loved it, highly recommended.

starting up enders game.

liking it a lot so far.